Shocking headlines! Medford had just completed the driest first quarter every on record! Who knew? We have been rejoicing here about the best grass in our pasture in the 7 years we have been here! Spots in our pasture are lush green growing paradices of growth.... And without any irrigation! Just how is this possible?
First let me say... Or pastures are... Well... Poor. We have struggled to grow anything meaningful for as long as we have been here. any decent growth is unusual, let alone during the driest first quarter ever.
Yet, visit or land and you can see plainly the areas of beautiful green growth. In fact, it is plain to see that you can see why. The areas of growth exactly follow where the animals concentrated last session. Every coop location or track is now outlined in lush growth. You can follow how we pulled the coops across last season. You can see the coop outline where they sat. You can see the corners where the horses spent time. Growth this season is a drawing of the activities of last session.
The trick is stress and relax, with animals between crop production. Instead of raising animals on concrete our tiny pens and cages like factory farms do, move those animals to the land, properly managed, and crop yields explode. instead of paying for fertilizer, farmers can make money for increasing land fertility.
The problem with modern agriculture, as i have stated before, is this crazy notion that there can be a successful single production farm. It can't be done. Nature exists, thrives even, on variety. Symbiosis of variety is inherent in natural processes everywhere. This is the secret.
The second problem with land fertility is the other crazy notion that herds must be limited to prevent overgrazing. That notion is itself a misunderstanding of nature and a path to failure. Keeping land from being stressed prevents improvement. Land slowly degrades if kept resting under minimal animal loading. land needs more animals, not fewer, to improve.
Also, fertilizing is not the same as herding. Fertilizing is only one of many aspects of the benefits of herding. By itself fertilizing does not build fertility!
Herding is the answer, nature holds the key. Farmers need to stop fighting nature, stop trying to change and control things, and instead just manage the natural processes and duplicate nature.
Nature works, if you let it work.
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